Lake is ‘not receiving the protection it needs’

The biggest single source of drinking water in Kerry is not receiving the protection it needs, it has been warned, as delays in providing a €23m treatment plant continue.

Lough Guitane, near Killarney, supplies about 70,000 people — half the county’s population, including the towns of Killarney and Tralee — and work on a new treatment plant had been due to start last year.

However, according to Kerry County Council, construction may not begin until 2014, subject to Department of Environment approval.

Lough Guitane itself, meanwhile, is being offered for sale for €1.6m by a London-based estate agent on behalf of two unnamed owners, from Tralee and Killarney. A sale would not affect the council’s long-held water abstraction rights, it has been confirmed.

As well as that, a 7,000sq ft home and other buildings, for which planning permission has been granted, around the lake must have state-of-the-art effluent treatment systems.

Cllr Donal Grady (Ind) stressed the urgency of providing a new treatment plant.

“I would have great concern about Lough Guitane as the lake is not getting the protection it should be getting,” he said.

“We’re talking about liquid gold here, but it is not being protected enough.”

Mr Grady, who raised the issue at this week’s Killarney Town Council meeting, said the water supply from Lough Guitane should be brought up to EPA and European standards before any water charges are imposed.

He said the county council had previously received letters from the EPA saying the water was not up to required standards.

An outbreak of cryptosporidium, as happened in Galway in 2007, would have disastrous consequences for Killarney and for tourism, Mr Grady warned.

The county council said the current water treatment at the late was limited to chlorination, fluoridation, and acidic correction, but a full water-treatment plant, as recommended by the EPA, had been proposed.

Estimated to cost €22.73m, the plant is included in the 2010-13 water services investment programme. The planning process has been completed for the facility, which would be on an 11-acre site.

Contract documents will be sent to the Department of the Environment next month, and construction could start in 2014, the council said.